A couple of years ago, a professor at my university had a very interesting thought exchange with the class I was in. We were a small group, and I knew most of them, they were my friends. Anyway, we had a talk about language purism - not an unimportant subject if you study English in The Netherlands.

We'd like to believe, but the risk of just buying an overpriced x86 machine with an OS that wasn't the second coming is too big. After all, if OS X rubs you the wrong way, you just spent way too much money on a machine that will be running Windows (or BSD / Linux) anyways. Mac innards are common x86 components, so if OS X falls short of it's magic expectations, you just blew too much money on what will basically be a lowly beige box.

You can allready buy a beige box as you have no risks. If apple are offering a better os x "integration", maybe they offer better bsd, linux and windows "integtation". Maybe your poor old, linux and windows is "integrated" and will run better on apple hardware. After all it is THE BEST hardware.